Good Enough Belief

Learning to navigate fragmented belief

Have you ever talked to someone who is deeply religious? (maybe you yourself are deeply religious). It feels like they have the answer to everything, that their one system of thinking can light up their path in life. One thing that always stands out in those sorts of conversations is how everything ends up bottlenecking at the idea of belief. It’s not rational or logical, but it feels self evident and obvious to them. I have been wondering for a while if something similar happens with creativity.

These last few months have been hard, erratic, busy with travel and not the most conducive to creating things. But Thursdays roll around fast and I expect myself to write something new every time. It's not like the ideas aren't there, my notion page is brimming with half finished articles and ideas, but pushing ideas through to the finish line is something else.

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I’ve been thinking about what makes me both know that I will ultimately publish something when its Thursday and also what makes it hard to just pull the words out of my head and put them on the page. Both seem to be about belief, or the lack thereof.

One part of me knows and says that I am someone who shows up when I have committed to something. Whether it is a promise to myself or to another, I know how to show up.

This is the part that takes on 500 day long projects, that decides to jump in headfirst into industries I know nothing about, and that knows that once I set my mind to something, there is little that can stand in my way. It’s a part that has been born from experience.

My therapist says when we have had a negative experience, the only way to improve that situation is to have corrective experiences. No amount of talking will do what a small amount of being can accomplish. And my belief in my own commitment is born of several experiences I’ve had over my lifetime that reinforce that I will do what I set out to do. It’s a bit like when people who are religious pray everyday, and then remember the good things that happened when they prayed, and believe in their god more.

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But another part of me does not believe in quality of the work that I will put out. It says “I know you will make something, but will it be something worth making?” I don’t really know the answer to that. I don’t think in my decades of making things, I have found the answer to that. So the lack of the belief haunts me, every single time I want to make something. Because yes, I can make it, but will it be worth making? Worth existing?

For years I used to hate everything I created, once it was done, I disliked it. I knew about the idea of the gap between taste and output. While the gap has reduced over the years, I still don’t feel like I can create good work reliably. The journey from idea to artifact is rocky, and sometimes I arrive at my destination and sometimes at the exact opposite of where I wanted to go. It’s disappointing, to want to write a piece and realizing by the end that it has nothing unique to say.

But the worst is to stay in the place where I started. To never have finished it.

Once an idea takes hold, not moving is about the worst thing I can do to myself. Whether it goes in the direction I want it to or not doesn't matter. Or rather it is a secondary concern.

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You know what I hate? The fact that creativity is fractal. The moment you have one idea, suddenly 10 new options are open to you, you choose one after much effort and then again, lo and behold, here are 10 more. When you face an empty canvas, everything is a possibility, but even after you draw the first line, you could draw a million other “next” and a million others after that, each one giving a completely unique painting in the end.

When ideas initially come, they are grand, beautiful, dazzling. When I was young I used to think that was all I needed. A grand idea. But unfortunately it isn’t as simple as that. Because rather than amazing things made because of one brilliant idea and then execution for years, truly brilliant stuff is a process of constantly finding my path, finding one good idea after another. ”Let’s make an article about belief — But maybe it also needs to be about ideas — And maybe I need to explain how I think about creating things.” It is about making “good enough” decisions but making one thousand of them in a row.

In some ways It makes it easier because having a good enough idea is orders of magnitude easier than having a brilliant idea.

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This is also why the starting points of most projects, most “things” only matters for internal alignment. Is this the kind of thing where I will be able to put in the kind of effort that requires me to make hundreds of thousands of great decisions? That’s what passion is useful for. Whenever I think about creating something new, my brain wants to know everything from the get go. Perfect name, perfect pitch, who is my audience, what’s my voice, what topics do I want. A need to believe “this will be perfect” before I start.

Obviously I can’t do that in the beginning. I know almost nothing at the start of a project, I understand the least about the project. I need to actually dirty my hands in the clay a bit to know what vessel I want to build. For me, the beginning is about having an idea that I am excited, interested, curious about. Because if I care about this, in any way shape or form, whether it is a value I care about, or it is passion or obsession, or it is something that I know I am uniquely suited to do, that no one else can even fathom doing, that kind of caring will push me through the initial few decisions. Before the thing starts taking up shape.

While this does not give me belief, because I made bad decisions, and good ones, brilliant ones and terrible ones, it does give me a middle path, of knowing how to operate without belief. Of starting based on my love for the idea, and of knowing that I will finish it, as hard as it may be.

Do I believe in myself? In parts I do. And sometimes, those parts will have to be enough. I may not ever have the Ironclad belief in myself that someone religious may have in their god. I will never get all the answers. The point isn’t one of believing or not, but to keep moving despite a fragmented belief.

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Thanks for reading this week’s article. Come back again next time! And leave me a note/like if it resonated with you.